Series Description

The Fridays TV show was a live sketch comedy series on ABC that aired for 70 minutes in its first season and 90 minutes in the second and third seasons. It was nearly identical to the format followed on NBC's hit series, "Saturday Night Live".

Fridays Cast

Mark Blankfield
Maryedith Burrell
Melanie Chartoff
Larry David
Darrow Igus
Brandis Kemp
Bruce Mahler
Michael Richards
John Roarke

Fridays Trivia:

Rather than naming the celebrity guest stars during the opening credits like on Saturday Night Live, Fridays listed their names during the closing credits.

Guest star Andy Kaufman was well known for his antics that totally confused his co-stars. During his appearance on Fridays he broke out of character during a sketch and started a fight with Michael Richards ("Seinfeld"). Other than the few participants who were in on the joke, nearly all of the cast and crew thought that the fight was for real!

In response to SNL's "Weekend Update", Fridays also had a spoof of current news called, "Friday Edition". Both shows also regularly did spoofs of TV series and commercials and featured guest hosts and musical guests.

By the end of its first season, Fridays was actually beating SNL in the ratings. Then ABC decided to expand their hit news program, "Nightline" to five nights per week and that moved Fridays from 11:30 to midnight and the ratings took a nosedive.

ABC tried to reinvigorate Fridays by moving it to primetime in 1982. Unfortunately they put it up against the CBS megahit series, "Dallas" and almost no one watched Fridays so the series was canceled after just one primetime broadcast.